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April 29, 2009

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As part of its election coverage, last Monday's Hindustan Times carries a "Constituency Watch" for two nearby constituencies, Thane and Kalyan. Part of this feature is a small table titled "Demographic Details".

Because us Muslims are a homogeneous vote bank who decide to cast their vote to only that candidate who is unanimously endorsed by the maulanas (or at least that's what Hindustan Times seems to believe).

Because according to Samuel Hungtington there is a clash of civilization between the Hindu Civilization of India and the Muslim Civilization. Hence, they are different. There is a clash. And we have to support our civilization i.e Hindu Civilization.

As for Christians, "they are Europeans" and Sikhs and Jains "they are after all our people only, yaar!", Buddhists "they are ofcourse our people but we don't dine together for scientific reasons prescribed by our great ancestors who were very wise and only ocassionally got high on soma (a divine drink)"

Maharashtrians are an eternal people who gave India its independence. Gujrathi's are a business minded people who have business "in their blood" vis a vis Maharashtrians who have mostly water and corpuscels.

The "Others", I don't understand what these people are doing in India. They should be banned or lined up and shot.

regards,Baby V1 800 IDENTITYVIOLENCECall us and we will tell you which one of your various group identities can get you killed or rich or both.

You are on slippery ground...Don't understand why you are attacking the whole communities that are listed. Did you ask those communities if they are happy to be listed like that before directing your ire?..Anger should be directed against the guy who made this listing not at the communities listed.....classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

Is there anything wrong with wanting to know how many people of each division(for lack of a better word..apologies if it offends anyone) live in you area? Come on we all know, Maharashtrian means Marathi speaking people etc..

Agreed the parties use it to their benefit but they probably have these statistics already..probably even more accurate. As readers I dont see anything wrong with getting to know say how many sikh people are there per 10 Marathi speaking people in ones locality.

We are diverse and its better we accept our diversity as a people rather than say that we are not different.

I was about to mention something that bugs me - the (still) common Bangali distinction between Hindu Bongs who are called Bangalis and the Muslim Bongs who are classified as 'Musholmaan'.

Then I saw Neeraj's comment and gave up.In case you're reading this and wondering, Neeraj, I can appreciate your accepting Maharashtrians as a distinct linguistic group. But who exactly speaks 'Muslim'?

In India, almost no one has a single identity --- a person's identity depends on context. I might be a Tamil, a "South Indian" (an improvement over the offensive "Madrasi"!), a Hindu, an upper/lower caste etc. in different contexts.

The perception in the news report, misguided as it might be, is that for voting purposes, it's the religious identity of a Muslim that matters over his/her linguistic identity while for non-Muslims, it's their linguistic identity that matters. This says something about perception of Muslims but I would not go so far as to call it a "shame." Or rather, if it is a "shame" then there are any number of similar instances which also deserve to be called "shameful."

Here's one: In Delhi, people from the North-East -- especially women -- have to face all sorts of problems which by now, are well-known. (It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what North-Eastern women have to put up with in Delhi.) Indeed, the Delhi Police, in 2007, put out a pamphlet Security tips for Northeast students/visitors in Delhi as a "guide" for North-Easterners. Far from solving anything, the pamphlet ended up infuriating the North-Easterners because it more-or-less implied that they were responsible for their problems! See Kalpana Sharma's report:

http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/aug/ksh-dont.htm

Let's face it: we all have stereotypes about one another. Given our diversity, this is not surprising. Muslims certainly suffer from stereotyping but so do so many others. Just to clarify, I am not defending stereotyping of Muslims, just trying to put it in context.

J Alfred- Ive been checking ever since I made the comment for anyone who replied to it. Look all I'm trying to say is that its a statistic. I think we read too much into it. I'm sure we all accept that stereotyping takes place and stereotyping leads to bias but to say that a statistic that appears in a newspaper is shameful is a little far fetched.

The religions in India are such that people who speak Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and all the other gazillion languages are (basically) Hindus. Muslims are Muslims. If they speak Tamil or Bengali as you point out its because they have stayed in a Bengali speaking region. Even Christians for that matter. Now tell me what is wrong with knowing how many such Muslims live in a given region? Obviously its when we make distinctions based on these things that it becomes shameful. The politicians do it all the time and they sow the seeds of such distinctions in our minds. We just have to be more open and think for ourselves.

Anyway look, again you're reading too much. Yes you speak several languages but isnt it because you were brought up/have lived in an area with those languages being spoken there? Dont you follow Christian traditions? Isnt it first important to know how you are different from me for me to embrace you?

Maybe I used the wrong words but dont get me wrong, I have nothing against anyone. All I want to say is reading too much into statistics is stupid.

Isnt it first important to know how you are different from me for me to embrace you?--Dont you think so? Arent people of other religions different from each other? If you dont think so I give up.

All I want to say is reading too much into statistics is stupid.---THAT IS MY POINT.

So you are saying that anyone but a Hindu speaks a language because one was "brought up/has lived in an area with those languages being spoken"?---ok this is a little bit flawed. What was in my mind was that if we date Indias history, we realize that Muslims were not natives of this land. So for a Muslim to speak say Bengali, he would have had to settle in a Bengali speaking region. Right or wrong? Not that it should be held against him in any way. Why I say it is slightly flawed is because I have gone way back in history but it serves as good frame of reference. The problem off course is how far back in history do you go? I dont think there is an answer to it because at different points of time in history you will find different representative samples.

The only people who are creating the divisions are the politicians and to some extent the media. The statistic gives us an idea about the demographic features of our land. End of story.

Your sniping from behind an "anonymous" id is par for the course for the more idiotic of the Hindutvavadins. Now that says something.

Your logic reminds me of the Nazis. Traditionally in Europe there was discrimination against Jews but in *principle*, the discrimination ended when a Jew agreed to convert to Christianity. The Nazis changed that. In the Nazi viewpoint, "Jewishness" was a "racial" category and hence was unchangeable. There was no action that a Jew could take that would make the Nazis spare her/him.

Now about Dilip. He has asserted, umpteen number of times, that he is *not* a Christian. But of course, the accusation continues. There's nothing that Dilip can do, can he, that will satisfy you guys that he's not a Christian? Presumably, like the Nazis, for a Hindutvavadi, once a Christian/Muslim, always one. You know, I thought the comparison of Hindutva to Nazism by some (like Christoph Jaffrelot) was stretching it a little too far. Thanks to you, I stand corrected.

I wonder if you guys realize that the only consequence of your actions is to push even non-observant Christians/Muslims into becoming hardline Christians/Muslims. Probably not.

PS: In the above, I emphasize the word "principle." That's because in Europe there was always suspicion regarding the genuineness of the conversion. The Spanish Inquisition was born out of such suspicion.

Anonym-ass? You think with your gonads, friend! Go wash your mouth off with soap. What would your mother think if she heard you talk like that? Perhaps you came from Central Asia during the Aryan invasion of India. You should go back there. Quit India. Take a short-cut there, use the secret passage located in your gluteus maximus. Yes, look it up, Anonym-ass.